Image Registration Method

1. A method of registering image data for a series of T original images acquired over a period of time, comprising: carrying out a first set of three steps: 1a) performing Principal Component Analysis on the series of T original images to produce T eigenvectors U 1 m ; 1b) generating a series of T synthetic images based on only the first of the T eigenvectors, U 1 1 ; 1c) registering each original image to its corresponding generated synthetic image to produce a second set of T images that are coarsely registered; carrying out a second set of three steps: 2a) performing Principal Component Analysis on the second set of T images to produce a second set of T eigenvectors U 1 m ; 2b) generating a second series of T synthetic images based on the first and second of the second set of T eigenvectors U 2 1 and U 2 2 ; 2c) registering each of the second set of images to its corresponding generated second synthetic image to produce a third set of T images; and carrying out an iterative process T−1 times in order to generate a final series of T well-registered images, wherein the iterative process comprises repeating the second set of three steps except that in each repeated set of three steps: the Principal Component Analysis is performed on the previously generated set of T images, the generated synthetic images are based on a set of eigenvectors whose number increases in each iteration by an increment of one, and the previously generated set of T images is registered to the newly generated set of synthetic images.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of displaying the final well-registered set of image data A T ij on a display device.

3. An apparatus for registering image data for a series of T original images acquired over a period of time, comprising: means for carrying out a first set of three steps: 1a) performing Principal Component Analysis on the series of T original images to produce T eigenvectors U 1 m ; 1b) generating a series of T synthetic images based on only the first of the T eigenvectors, U 1 1 ; 1c) registering each original image to its corresponding generated synthetic image to produce a second set of T images that are coarsely registered; means for carrying out a second set of three steps: 2a) performing Principal Component Analysis on the second set of T images to produce a second set of T eigenvectors U 2 m ; 2b) generating a second series of T synthetic images based on the first and second of the second set of T eigenvectors U 2 1 and U 2 2 ; 2c) registering each of the second set of images to its corresponding generated second synthetic image to produce a third set of T images; and means for carrying out an iterative process T−1 times in order to generate a final series of T well-registered images, wherein the iterative process comprises repeating the second set of three steps except that in each repeated set of three steps: the Principal Component Analysis is performed on the previously generated set of T images, the generated synthetic images are based on a set of eigenvectors whose number increases in each iteration by an increment of one, and the previously generated set of T images is registered to the newly generated set of synthetic images.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 , and further comprising a display device for displaying the final well-registered set of image data A T ij .